It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for a hint. Here's a list of people who solved it:Edderiofer He **Jack Bross **Mark Tilford **
Adam Weaver **
Bryce Herdt **
Jack Lance **
John Bulten **
Ryan Faley *

WORDY WEDNESDAY #82

LOGICROSSWORD (hint)

As of this writing, 8 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your solutions to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

Shade in some cells in the grid below, and fill the rest with letters to form words left-to-right and top-to-bottom, crossword style. All words are Scrabble-legal (see scrabble.merriam.com); however, most of the words in the intended solution should be familiar.

* No two black cells share an edge. All the white cells are connected through their edges.
* The words CHECKMATE and EDIT read horizontally, as does another 9-letter word.
* The words RES and ZUGZWANG read vertically.
* The word BOZO intersects with the word ZETA.
* One row contains the word GNU and a 5-letter word.
* Row 2 contains the letters I and L.
* Row 4 contains a 2-letter word and a 5-letter word.
* Row 5 contains the word CASA.
* Row 7 contains the letter T.
* Columns C and D contain the same number of black cells.
* The black cell at H5 is the only black cell in column H.
* Cells A7 and G4 contain the same letter.
* Cells F3 and H4 contain the same letter.

Shade in some cells in the grid below, and fill the rest with letters to form words left-to-right and top-to-bottom, crossword style. All words are Scrabble-legal (see scrabble.merriam.com); however, most of the words in the intended solution should be familiar.

* No two black cells share an edge. All the white cells are connected through their edges.
* The word FETTUCINI reading horizontally intersects the word ALFREDO reading vertically.
* Row 1 contains a 9-letter word which ends in D and intersects the word UP.
* Row 6 contains the letter S.
* Some row contains a 3-letter word and a 4-letter word.
* Two consecutive rows contain 6-letter words.
* The only black cell in column A is in row 6.
* Column C contains a 5-letter word ending in Y.
* Some column contains the words ALA and CACHE.
* Some column contains the words ARE and EIKON.
* The words ACT and SHIED read somewhere in the grid.
* Cells A2 and A9 contain the same letter.
* Cells A8 and B9 contain the same letter.
* Cells D8 and G9 contain the same letter.

DORK IS YES!

My second album, Dork Is Yes!, is finally out! It consists of 24 tracks written in the Nintendo game WarioWare DIY. You can download it for free, or you can throw in a few bucks to motivate me to write more music. I might even write a special music track for you which I'll include in my next album. . . .

* What's a 5-letter word for "Company associated with Clarus the Dogcow"?
* Patron Puzzle #8, which will be delivered exclusively to Patreon supporters ($5 or more per month), is a Framelinks. All of the unchecked letters are given to you in a 21x21 crisscross grid; you must supply the rest to form words reading across and down. 136 letters need to be placed; 74 words will be formed.

It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:Giovanni Pagano **Jack Bross **Mark Tilford **
Adam Weaver **
Bo Green **
Bryce Herdt **
Izak Bulten *
John Bulten *
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #81

2112 PIXELS (hint)

As of this writing, 7 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's a hint. Send your solutions to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

Shade in some cells in the grid below, and fill the rest with letters to form words left-to-right and top-to-bottom, crossword style. All words are Scrabble-legal (see scrabble.merriam.com); however, most of the words in the intended solution should be familiar.

* No two black cells share an edge. All the white cells are connected through their edges.
* The words GEWGAW and HORSESHOE read horizontally.
* The words ELDER and RADIATING read vertically.
* The words ATE, KA, and THORAX read somewhere in the grid.
* The words ABA and BONBON intersect.
* The row or column containing the word OUSTS contains another instance of the letter T.
* Row 4 contains a 4-letter word.
* Row 5 contains two words of the same length.
* Row 7 contains the letter S and exactly one black cell.
* Columns A and B both contain the letter P.
* Cell D2 contains the letter C.
* Some row or column contains three instances of the same letter.
* There are two instances of the letter V in the grid.

It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:Giovanni Pagano **Jack Bross **Mark Tilford **Peter Abide **
Adam Weaver **
Bryce Herdt **
John Bulten **
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #80

PENT WORDS 16 (hint)

As of this writing, 9 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your solutions to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

Remember how this blog's titled “A Cleverly-Logic Puzzle Blog” even though the author doesn't post logic puzzles anymore? Looks like he's jumped the shark a second time: a “Wordy Wednesday” puzzle without words, not even instructions! This is quickly becoming “MIT Mystery Hunt Wednesday”. . . .

The answer is a single 5-letter word.

DORK IS YES!

16 tracks are now available from my upcoming album Dork Is Yes!. There is still time to buy the album early if you're desperate to hear the other 8 tracks before anyone else, but when the album drops on December 24, it will be a completely free download. Enjoy these 24 music tracks composed using Wario Ware DIY!

PUZZLE ADVENT CALENDAR!

Speaking of things that are released on a schedule of one a day, fellow puzzler David Millar has been continuing his annual tradition of posting a puzzle and sharing one clue a day for the 25 days leading up to Christmas. This year, he has two puzzles: a logic puzzle about a Christmas gift exchange, and three overlapping sudoku grids. If you're skilled at logic, you should be able to solve over half of the digits in the sudoku with just the first 16 grid pieces. As a public service announcement, though, after hitting a contradiction in my grid and sharing my solving process with David, he realized that there's a mistake in the current (as of this writing) version of day 15: there should be a bar between the top-left cell and the middle-left cell.

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .

* There are two instances of the letter V in the grid. (Spoiler alert!)

It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:Christian H.P. **Giovanni Pagano **Jack Bross **Mark Tilford **Peter Abide *
Adam Weaver **
Bo Green & Taylor Cooper **
Bryce Herdt **
John Bulten **
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #79

PATHFINDER (hint)

As of this writing, 10 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your solutions to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

In this puzzle, you must divide the grid into pentominoes (regions containing five cells each), and write a letter in each cell. The rows, reading from left to right, will contain the words hinted at by the ACROSS clues. The letters in the pentominoes, in reading order (left to right starting with the top row), will form the words hinted at by the PENTOMINOES clues; these clues are presented in no particular order. (In the example below, the rows spell PLANT, SHARE, and BITES, and the pentominoes spell the words PLANS, TREES, and HABIT.) Use the ACROSS answers to determine where the pentominoes are.

ACROSS (two answers per row):
1 ____ and Jill (notorious 2011 movie) / Make tidy
2 Word of ____ / Drench
3 Main course / Four years, for Obama
4 One with a crystal ball, perhaps / Ravioli and such
5 Word in a John Stuart Mill title / Long period of time
6 ____ of Eden / Kitchen fixtures
7 It may be red or white / 60's cartoon hero Roger
8 Interfere with / Naked
9 Showed happiness / Richard of Pretty Woman
10 Magician Burton / Christopher of Back to the Future

It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:Christian H.P. **Giovanni Pagano **Jack Bross **Mark Tilford **
Adam Weaver **
Bo Green **
Bryce Herdt **
John Bulten **
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
yyw **Note: One of my Patreon supporters recently cancelled their support. As a poor person myself, I am completely understanding; I can't afford to support all the people I like, either. I have decided that your name will appear in read if you were a patron at anytime between solving the puzzle and the solution appearing on my blog. It seems only fair.

WORDY WEDNESDAY #78

MUSICAL WORD CHAIRS 2 (hint)

As of this writing, 10 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your solutions to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

In this puzzle, each answer starts in the correspondingly numbered square, goes in some direction, and makes one or more right-angled turns as it winds through the grid. When you have finished, every white square will be used in exactly two entries.

Some of you might recall that I dabble in music. After 5 years, I am finally ready to drop my second album! Titled Dork Is Yes!, this album consists of 24 tracks all created using the music-making software included in the Nintendo DS game WarioWare DIY. I will release one track every day from now until December 24, at which point the album will become available for download on Bandcamp. You may buy the album early to gain immediate access to all the tracks, or wait until December 24 when it will be available for free. Also consider subscribing to my YouTube channel to be notified when I publish future tracks (and episodes of my alleged game show PrimeTime Concentration). I hope you will support my music-related efforts as well as my puzzle-related ones!

Support me on Patreon!

If you enjoy my weekly word puzzles, please consider supporting me monthly on Patreon. You'll get sneak peeks at this blog's puzzles, and exclusive puzzles just for patrons. You can support for whatever amount per month fits your budget. Thank you!

Who's the author?

Grant Fikes has been writing logic puzzles in an amateur capacity since 2005, and in a professional capacity since 2013. He serves as the second-most prolific contributor to the blog on Grandmaster Puzzles, behind only Thomas Snyder; his works have also appeared in Akil Oyunlari, in Sudoku Xtra, the United States Puzzle Competition (2012-2014), and in a smartphone app. Grant has also created Kakuro puzzles for Kakuro Conquest (the puzzles haven't appeared yet, for whatever reason). As a budding word puzzle constructor, Grant's puzzles have appeared in the short-lived Will Shortz's Wordplay, in GAMES World of Puzzles, and in the smartphone app Bonza, and his creation Pent Words has won an award from Kadon Enterprises; as an occasional board gamer, his game Battle of LITS has been published by nestorgames and Lyris Laser Studios and is playable on BoardGameArena. On the Internet, Grant has adopted the persona of a purple and cyan fox/badger hybrid.

PLEASE DO:* commission me! I make good puzzles!* become my patron on Patreon! You'll get early access to my word puzzles!* print these puzzles out to solve them on paper* copy and paste these puzzles into your preferred image editor, and solve them there* e-mail me (glmathgrant@gmail.com; I can nudge you towards a solution if you're stuck, or interact with you in other ways)* post non-spoiler comments directly on the blog (i.e., "I like what you did with the 3's", "The logic in the upper left corner was astounding")* share these puzzles with friends and link to this blog

PLEASE DON'T:* spoil the solution in the comments section for all others to see* post completely irrelevant comments (including comments consisting completely of punctuation)* claim these puzzles as your own* make money off of these puzzles without my permission

What's that font?

Since Wordy Wednesday 72, all puzzles on this blog use the royalty-free Tinos font. Hooray for free stuff!

Who made those images?

The purple and cyan mascot on this page is my fox/badger fursona Grant Badger Fox. The blog's banner was made by PunkJax, the image of Grant holding a tip jar was made by Marquis2007, and the "Certified Puzzlemaster" badge was made by Mary Mouse.